A Gap In the Sky

1

The stars swirled. The sky was a blanket, and Remus Lupin was a bed bug. Or. No, that doesn't sound quite romantic enough.

Remus was in the sky. He was as much a part of it as the stars, and. No, Remus Lupin was the sky itself. He was looking down on everything.

The houses, the trees, the rivers, oh look! He was sure that was Lily and Mary down there, trying not to laugh at each other as they bickered. There were many conversations, Remus could tell, from the moving mouths and expressive faces. But he couldn't hear what they were talking about. No. The sky is deaf to all. The sky is not a part of the conversations.

The sky is something that everyone forgets about for most of their lives, but it's always there. It's something that people remember about occasionally and glance up at. Once or twice a day, they gaze in awe at it's blooming colors, totally surprised as if seeing it for the first time. Then the next day, they're surprised again when it shows its abilities once more.

Remus' clouds spun like cotton candy, and his moods passed with the rains. His sun rose and fell and he moved along. He watched the others go about their lives. He saw acquaintances go through job interviews and first dates alike, and he watched. They never looked up for more than a minute.

On a gloomy gray Friday in Remus' sky, he watched a black-haired boy cross the road near Remus' favorite coffee shop. Or no, the black-haired boy had not crossed. He had stopped. He was standing still in the middle of the road, clutching a coffee in one hand and a fistful of what appeared to be sugar packets in the other. He looked up.

Remus wished he could turn away. Within a minute, the boy would return to his own world, and Remus would forget about him and the boy would forget about Remus. But no. Remus looked down on the boy's open face.

It was a nice face. Beautiful even. Dotted with freckles and the spats of rain Remus seemed to be procuring. But then he frowned. His features wrinkled in distaste. Remus wanted to flinch but he knew that would cause thunders and storms for everyone he cared about. So he just stared and the boy stared—glared—back. He glared and he glared. Remus didn't know why he was glaring but this was the longest anyone had ever looked at him before.

Until this beautiful black-haired boy looked away. He looked away, and he walked across the rest of the street and through the streets and Remus couldn't even follow him.

Because suddenly he couldn't watch everyone anymore. He was standing in the middle of the street near his favorite coffee shop. He was clutching a fistful of rapidly draining rain water in one hand, and a coffee in the other. He was on the ground. And all he could feel was the swirl in his stomach from dropping a long way down quickly and the stab of a lost connection.

Well no, Remus wasn't the sky. He hadn't ever been the sky, except sometimes in dreams. No, Remus was a dry-humored first year university student who survived off of mountains of toast and ponds-full of tea. He enjoyed a good coffee now and again, from The Three Broomsticks, the oddly-named cafe where he first saw this black-haired boy.

In truth, Remus' sighting of this boy from the sky had been one of his many metaphorical happenings. Remus did love a good metaphor. Or perhaps some symbolism. (He was studying as an English major after all).

The thing was that Remus felt like the sky often enough, in the way that frogs feel that they are amphibians. He was aware of his detachment from life, completely and totally, but he never could put a reason or a name to it. The black-haired boy put a name to it, though, the next time he popped in for coffee.

"You look out of it," the boy remarked frankly as he bumped by Remus on the door out.

"Out of it?" Remus whipped his head to face him, scoffing.